After having a successful campaign in the 2013 U.S. Soccer Development Academy Winter Showcase last December in Florida, Chivas USA’s U18 Team is ready for its first game of 2014. The U18 Team will travel to Northern California on Saturday to face San Juan Soccer Academy in its 12th game of the 2013/2014 USSDA season; the match is set to kick-off at noon at West Hills Community College.

The Red-and-White’s U18 Team finished off the action in the Regular Season with a 1-0 win over the San Diego Surf. With a boost of confidence after the victory, the team travelled to Florida where they took part of the annual Winter Showcase. Led by Head Coach Juan Sanchez, the U18 side was matched up against Sporting KC, Concorde Fire and the Colorado Rapids, and excelled doing so, taking three consecutive victories.

“It was a great experience for the guys to play with players like Marky [Delgado] and Caleb [Calvert],” Sanchez said. “I think that gave us a lot of confidence, and you can see that in the body language of the players during the course of the Florida Showcase. They were very motivated and that should help transfer to the new year. Like I told the team, as much as we had two good players, we had nine other guys helping them as well.

“For us, it’s a great step; we were able to score 16 goals in three games, which before that, we had only scored nine in six games. It was all a very positive trip for us, and hopefully that will help us continue to do well this weekend.”

Going into this Saturday’s game, Chivas USA will go in with a boost of confidence after the positive end they had last year. With Delgado and Calvert out of action against San Juan, it will be up to the team to continue performing and adding points on their own. While the Red-and-White had a great run in the Winter Showcase, San Juan finished with a 1-0-2 (W-L-T) record, but the Mather, Calif.-based team was able to log a final win, closing the 2013 Regular Season with a 3-2 positive result over Arsenal FC.

After having a two week break following the showcase, the Red-and-White Development Academy resumed training on Monday, Jan. 6 at the Bell Gardens Sports Complex. With four days of training in the books, Coach Sanchez is looking for a team that would perform at the same rate it did in the Winter Showcase.

“Our focus was, one, can we continue to grow with our fitness?; and two, try to implement the tactics we have been using all year long, which are keeping possession of the ball, and really implementing our 4-3-3 system,” Sanchez finalized.

Chivas USA’s U16 Team will also match-up against San Juan Soccer Club. Their match is set to kick-off at 2:30 p.m. (PT) at West Hills Community College.